With the increasing trend of online shopping, a brick-and-mortar merchant that operates a number of physical stores to sell products and services may also utilize the Internet as an additional avenue to sell the products and services. For example, in addition to its existing physical stores, a merchant may also operate an electronic commerce (e-commerce) website through which consumers can purchase one or more of the products and services offered by the merchant.
In some cases, a consumer may place an order for a product or service via the website of the merchant, and the consumer still needs to visit one of the physical stores of the merchant to either pick up the product or receive the service purchased online. Upon arriving at the physical store to pick up the product or receive the service, the consumer may need to wait for an amount of time for the purchased product or service to be prepared or collected for delivery to the consumer. Besides, while at the physical store, if the consumer decides to purchase one or more additional products and/or services, this in-store purchase and the previously-made online order may be treated by the merchant as two separate transactions.